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70 Excellent Vintage and Retro Graphic Works

smashingmagazine.com — Retro and vintage are often considered as being outdated, looking old, unattractive and dull. That's not true. It has a large variety of benefits modern graphic designers often tend to overlook. And that's a pity. Because we, as designers, can learn a lot from it.

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  • Henko, on 04/22/2008, -0/+18Some look surprisingly contemporary. The "Five British Graphic Designers" is just fantastic! Thanks for this, love it.
    • travis6690, on 04/22/2008, -4/+1Pedobear is lurking in the Kawaii buttons...
    • Hangly, on 04/22/2008, -0/+3They look surprisingly contemporary because graphic design has made no real progress since the 60's.
      Actually forget progress, there has been no movement since the modernists that have made any significant impact.

      Whatever you might think of Helvetica, it's still king. Just look around you.
    • lava, on 04/22/2008, -0/+5I really liked the beethoven poster and I made a programatic version of it in flash. If anybody's interested, you can see it and get the source here: http://www.herecomesthescience.com/2008/04/22/thov ...
      • flangepiece, on 04/22/2008, -0/+2I need new eyes. I mistook that as "pornographic" at first glance. Tell you what though, nice flashification.
      • mahdaeng, on 04/22/2008, -0/+2Nice work! I really liked that Beethoven album cover too.
      • vagarach, on 04/22/2008, -0/+1Very nice! That's quite something. How long did it take to make?
      • lava, on 04/23/2008, -0/+1It took a couple of hours.
  • mesarah, on 04/22/2008, -2/+4Surprising. Great article.
  • jrcarscadden, on 04/22/2008, -1/+6Groovy! I liked the Yopta Project. The style of the 1940's-ish sci-fi novels covers was always a favorite of mine.
  • GerryBot, on 04/22/2008, -0/+8Awesome. Sometimes these big lists of pictures seem pointless, but they're great for inspiration.
  • fhernand, on 04/22/2008, -8/+1antzen gang bang in 3.. 2...1
  • hackthesystem, on 04/22/2008, -8/+2Like, oh my god! Retro is like, so fabulous!
  • Shiftgood, on 04/22/2008, -7/+2Radnificant

    yah.. i made that word up. its the cool thing to do. you can do it too
    • smrekar, on 04/22/2008, -0/+1Spectactical! Awesomacious! Tubulazing! This is fun.
  • diggrnumber1, on 04/22/2008, -2/+5The following is not a rickroll. It is related to this article:

    http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xp7vr_verdi-travi
    • Flashtone, on 04/22/2008, -0/+1great video, however, how is this related in anyway?
  • Frogee, on 04/22/2008, -0/+13Dugg for "Meet the Scout"
  • amanilaenvelope, on 04/22/2008, -0/+13i like the one with the hand holding the atom-looking periodic table. its awesome.
  • MavRevMatt, on 04/22/2008, -1/+1Awesome.
  • BFNews, on 04/22/2008, -0/+3Really like the Scott Hansen posters...
  • thetopcrusader, on 04/22/2008, -0/+1Loved the term "retro-futurism."
  • slimjim5811, on 04/22/2008, -0/+11Everything old is new again...or...everything new is old again.
  • riversc, on 04/22/2008, -1/+7dugg for slinky dog :)
  • KielKilla, on 04/22/2008, -4/+1You guys would love the stuff on ffffound.com if you liked this stuff.
    • DaveTehWave, on 04/22/2008, -0/+2dammit - it's an invite site....
  • rgon, on 04/22/2008, -0/+2Old is the new New.
  • rjc5056, on 04/22/2008, -2/+50If 70 ***** pictures can be on 1 page, top 10 lists comprised primarily of text have no excuses anymore other than blatant and reprehensible ad bombing.
    • milkmit, on 04/22/2008, -1/+2And you actually thought top 10 lists were designed to be anything else?
      People eat that ***** up, so there's entire sites dedicated to producing that sort of "content" and spamming it on digg. Paginate the article as if we all had 13" screens and the scrollbar was never invented, slap an ad or two where it fits (on every useless page, of course), and liberally sprinkle a few f-bombs into the copy so as to appear edgy and modern, and there you go.
      And still, people eat that ***** up....
  • iNONYMOUS, on 04/22/2008, -6/+1That's what she said.
  • RevinKoze, on 04/22/2008, -0/+2Mirror?....Anyone?
  • ImYourRealDad, on 04/22/2008, -0/+2modern style = elements of older styles uniquely applied

    Art nouveau is my favorite movement making a good comeback. No more of this Bauhaus infatuation.
  • nitesoulja, on 04/22/2008, -0/+6mirrors:
    robot rock: http://img169.imageshack.us/img169/1091/vintageret ...
    yopta project: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ekiselev/2250064795/
    Andy Gilmore:http://img175.imageshack.us/img175/8882/vintageret ...
    and http://img402.imageshack.us/img402/9181/vintageret ...
  • antdude, on 04/22/2008, -1/+1http://duggmirror.com/design/70_Excellent_Vintage_ ...
  • Spanq, on 04/22/2008, -2/+42"Retro and vintage designs are often considered as being outdated, looking old, unattractive and dull."

    No they aren't. You just made that ***** up.
    • gllopc, on 04/22/2008, -0/+1I think he's right that they can be perceived as "outdated (and) looking old"; but they certainly aren't dull!
  • archivist, on 04/22/2008, -1/+2i almost had an orgasm just seeing these...
  • Vorin, on 04/22/2008, -4/+1i downloaded them all and put them on my flikr, enjoy.
    http://www.flickr.com/photos/24512484@N06/sets/721 ...
    • RobotLeAwesome, on 04/22/2008, -0/+2why is he being dugg down? it works a lot faster on his flickr.
      • Vorin, on 04/22/2008, -0/+1i did post it a couple times, so if they saw it in more than one place, that's understandable.
  • Gojirra, on 04/22/2008, -1/+2Justice ftw.
  • Hangly, on 04/22/2008, -0/+2Retro and vintage are often considered as being outdated, looking old, unattractive and dull?

    Who says that? In my opinion at least everything past the modernist movement has been garbage. (Which isn't to say that modernism is necessarily the best.)
    Postmodernism should be renamed the crap-on-a-stick movement. Again, just my opinion.
  • drugged, on 04/22/2008, -1/+4It's a nice post, but to say that vintage is considered as being outdated, looking old, unattractive and dull, is kind of messed up. People have been obsessing over vintage stuff for 25 years or more now (probably forever). In fact, stuff that was new when vintage first came into fashion is now vintage, and therefore interesting. People love old stuff, especially when it's been out of fashion long enough to look new again.
  • Pushkin, on 04/22/2008, -0/+3"I'm a (?) official Beatles Fan" ???
    http://88.198.60.17/images/vintage-retro/vintage-r ...
    and Ringo "Rings" ???
  • quelcertoleo, on 04/22/2008, -1/+3Vintage is outdated, dull and unattractive?
    Utter nonsense, in fact we're obsessed with vintage, look at the success of the New Mini, VW Beetle, the new Fiat 500, the new Mustang and so on. This trend is also clearly visible in dressing and industrial design of many other items.
  • erietta, on 04/22/2008, -0/+5Any retro design fun should subscribe to Creative Pro Gene Gable articles. This guy has been dedicated to digging up, scanning and presenting long lost designs for years. His archive is a treasure. http://creativepro.com/articles/author/127525 enjoy.
  • chibibonsai, on 04/22/2008, -0/+0Good collection of images. Cheers!
  • greatgatsbyII, on 04/22/2008, -0/+1I like that Oldsmobile
  • mlfoley, on 04/22/2008, -0/+2These are gorgeous. I'm looking up wallpapers this evening while reading digg and hope that these 'retro cosmic' images can be found for wallpaper. They're great.
  • Observer001, on 04/22/2008, -0/+2I was surprised how attractive a lot of those images were. DVNO's video in particular was most tight, my "gees."
  • jebudas, on 04/22/2008, -0/+2The Wrigley's Spearmint gum girl looks like Ellen Page!
    http://www.flickr.com/photos/themewl/304432307/
    (this link is from the article)
  • peterandbeer, on 04/22/2008, -0/+1I love that kind of retro artwork I don't know what it is about it but its so inviting.
  • h3lx, on 04/22/2008, -0/+1Brilliant use of color and layout. It's sad that composition going the way of the dodo. Many of these are outright genius.

  • Barovelli, on 04/22/2008, -0/+1Knitting Spools look like hash pipes.

    http://www.flickr.com/photos/47804501@N00/21660849 ...
    • cobalt8888, on 04/22/2008, -0/+1Or any other kind of pipe...

      I guess you see what you want to though...
  • triskele, on 04/22/2008, -0/+1Dugg for the Scout.
  • mdimmett, on 04/22/2008, -1/+1It's funny how most of this "collection" is from Scott Hansen's blog.
    http://blog.iso50.com/
    • antipoet, on 04/22/2008, -0/+2Cool blog. Does it have to automatically start playing music though?
  • rubberfactory, on 04/22/2008, -0/+2All of this "collection" was lifted from other sites. This collection, while interesting, was definitely not put together by a professional designer, but someone who thinks things look pretty.
  • Shatfacedpanda, on 04/22/2008, -0/+1Those would look good in an office, if I can find them.
  • Cvent, on 04/22/2008, -0/+0Some good stuff in here. The BOHN pieces are great! As a former owner of a couple Scout II's, I enjoyed seeing the original Scout ad.
  • bmkalbf, on 04/22/2008, -0/+0SLINKY DOG!!!!!
  • donkz, on 04/22/2008, -0/+1yopta = wtf in russian
  • cobalt8888, on 04/22/2008, -1/+2Goddamn the 60s and 70s were ugly.
  • wireframework, on 04/22/2008, -0/+1The DVNO video from Justice was awesome. Just sayin'.
  • WYendrys, on 04/22/2008, -0/+0Only about 10 of those were worth my time.
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